


Am I Alone?

by actingwithportals



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Body Horror, Deepnest, Facial Horror, Gen, mentions of dead siblings, no offense Herrah, rated for potentially graphic horror but again it's pretty light, that's it's own horror right there though, the Knight does not refer to themself as Ghost because of how I have the timeline set up here, the horror isn't actually that bad but I wanted to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23903212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actingwithportals/pseuds/actingwithportals
Summary: The Knight is well aware of the dangers that dwell in the depths of Deepnest, but what they never expected was to find something that could give them hope....Or so they thought.(Bad Things Happen Bingo fill 1: Facial Horror)
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722943
Comments: 11
Kudos: 99





	Am I Alone?

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Hollow Knight fic, so I hope folks like it!

They weren’t often the sort to be afraid.

Oh, they had faced things more frightening than most bugs could even conceive, certainly. Darkness more absolute than the blackest pits; dangers more deadly than the bravest warriors would dare approach; horrors no words could begin to express. They had stared Nightmares in the face and come out the stronger, mask held high and nail unbroken.

But standing in one of the lowest tunnels of Deepnest, beasts hissing and wailing around them in their terrible harmonious song, the Knight felt a fear roiling in their void in a way they had not experienced for a long time.

The Beast’s domain was an unfriendly place. Seemingly every cavern rang with the sound of great tunneling garpedes with their hundreds of legs, and it felt to the Knight as if every step they took led them into another bed of hungry dirtcarvers just waiting to take a bite out of them. It was impossible to tell the passage of time in this place – even more so than in the rest of Hallownest – for the dark of Deepnest was so absolute it felt as if time itself were being whittled away into obscurity. The Knight was used to the dark, had been born of it and grew among it, but that didn’t mean they found any comfort there.

If anything, they might have considered the dark worse for its familiarity.

It wasn’t the dark itself, however, that made the Knight freeze in their tracks when every other terrifying thing had made them run only faster. No, it was something far worse than beasts in the shadows that reminded them of how very real a thing fear could be.

It was a mask, empty and familiar, staring at them from the end of a tunnel.

A mask belonging to one that should be dead.

And it was now turning away to run further into Deepnest.

The Knight took only a moment to shake themself out of their stupor and give chase, the tunnels surrounding them growing eerily empty of crawlers in the dark the further they went, and this should have been a sign for concern, but the Knight had no thoughts to spare for their reprieve of adversaries. The only thought that permeated the mounting dread in their void was to _run._

And that is exactly what they did.

The bearer of that mask, they shouldn’t be here, _couldn’t_ be here. That place of their birth had been sealed, and the one time they had returned to it the only things that had been left inside were the shades of siblings whose masks had been broken long ago. What was one doing _here?_

The Knight did not think about the inconsistencies of their internal argument, did not acknowledge that they themself had found a way out, that they had seen a dead sibling at the feet of their sister in Greenpath, or a sibling still so close to home, aged yet broken and Infected. The Knight could not allow themself to think of them, because those siblings hadn’t survived. And if any other siblings had truly escaped, their chances of survival were equally slim.

Yet here one was, playing a game of hide-and-seek in one of the most dangerous places around Hallownest, and the hope that dared to swell within the Knight’s chest that _maybe they weren’t alone_ demanded to not be ignored.

That delicate hope scared them more than anything.

Not for the first time, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last, the Knight wished for a voice, even one just enough to call out with any sort of sound. They were unarguably fast, and the current charms they had fastened to their cloak only increased their natural speed, but the sibling seemed to always be just out of their reach, disappearing beyond corners only to turn up again at the far end of a tunnel that by all rights they should not have been able to reach in the amount of time passed.

Something wasn’t right. Yet the Knight pursued, nonetheless.

Why did their sibling run from them? What had frightened them so terribly that even the sight of a familiar mask would give them reason to flee? Or perhaps they were leading them somewhere, urging them on in such haste to a destination that could not wait for clumsy explanations brought on by their shared silence?

The Knight had no answers; they could only press on.

The deeper they went, the more discomfort they felt. It couldn’t be the dark, for that was already a constant in this place, and though passing the bodies of bugs long dead was never a pleasant sight, the numerous ones that littered the tunnels was something that had become expected in their travels. No, something else was pressing down on them, filling their void with a subtly growing sense of unease the deeper they went.

If only their sibling would slow their flight.

The Knight eventually came to a halt, losing sight of their sibling as they faced down a tunnel that appeared to be far longer than any they had come across thus far, if only for the impenetrable dark that seemed to swallow it in a way unlike the rest of Deepnest above them. Where those had regularly twisted and turned in every which way, this one appeared to go on.

And on.

_And on._

Something within the Knight’s void gave a shudder, but they did not falter for long. Whatever had led their sibling to this frightening place, it had to be something so terrible that they couldn’t risk delaying for even a moment longer. They would not leave a sibling alone to that fate, no matter how much their legs shook with each step forward.

It took several moments of walking in that tunnel for the Knight to realize what it was that had unsettled them so much during their chase.

_When had Deepnest grown quiet?_

Aside from the patter of their own feet, and the faint swish of their cloak, the cavern surrounding them had become silent. Gone were the thunderous marches of garpedes and wailing cries of beasts feasting upon prey. Everything was still.

_What manner of bug or beast could silence Deepnest?_

The Knight picked up their pace, steadily moving from a guarded walk to a near-frantic sprint. They couldn’t quite place it, but they knew something terrible awaited them at the end of the tunnel. And their sibling was already there with it.

As they drew closer, a faint glow of light could be seen at the end, but it did not bring them the comfort they would have expected from a break in the darkness. Instead, it urged them onward with a sense of foreboding, dashing the rest of the way until they finally broke out into the room beyond.

And there their sibling stood, in the center of an open cavern. Not a single beast or stalking monster of the dark in sight.

The Knight felt the tenseness in their shoulders relax, and they took a few moments to steady themself before approaching, palms outstretched in what they hoped was a sign of comfort. _You can trust me, Sibling._

The sibling did nothing more than stare blankly at them, not even acknowledging their approach with a gesture of their own.

The Knight paused, but only just, before taking a few more tentative steps. _It’s ok,_ they wanted to say. _I’m here. You aren’t alone. We aren’t alone._

_I’m not alone._

The Knight took a final step, stretching out their hands to grasp their sibling’s own; they were only a hair’s breadth away. _I’m not alone. I’m not alone!_

They never reached their sibling.

The mask before them shuddered, creaking and groaning as the white surface began to splinter and break apart. A cry so deafening it made the void within the Knight shake erupted from the cracks as something dark and viscous leaked through and gave itself form. Stretching further and further like the spires in the City above, sharp tendrils poured out of the sibling’s mask, dark becoming mixed with something sickly sweet and glowing bright and radiant.

Infection.

The sibling no longer stood eye-to-eye with the Knight, and whether that was due to their transformation or the Knight’s own failing stature as they sunk to their knees, they couldn’t say. In that moment, all they could manage was to sit and stare in abject horror as the visage of their sibling twisted into something foul.

Though it was a sibling’s mask that stared back at them, the eyes did not share their void. They were not cold; they held no comfort of familiarity.

If the Knight noticed the broken masks of numerous siblings swaying softly in the air where they were strung up around the cavern, they did not allow themself to dwell on them.

There would be no point in reminding themself of what they had already known they’d lost long ago.

They really were alone.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry, Ghost.


End file.
